Page 97 - Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, James Russell Lowell, Bayard Taylor

THE STORY OF BAYARD TAYLOR

[Illustration: BAYARD TAYLOR.]

BAYARD TAYLOR

CHAPTER I

HIS BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD

Bayard Taylor was born in the country village of Kennett Square, Chester
County, Pennsylvania, Jan. 11, 1825, "the year when the first locomotive
successfully performed its trial trip. I am, therefore," he says, "just as old as

the railroad." He was descended from Robert Taylor, a rich Friend, or
Quaker, who had come to Pennsylvania with William Penn in 1681, and

settled near Brandywine Creek. Bayard's grandfather married a Lutheran of
pure German blood, and on that account was expelled from the Society of
Friends, which at that time had very strict rules regarding the marriage of

its members. Although the family still used the peculiar speech of the
Quakers, and clung to the Quaker principles of peace and order, none of

them ever returned to the society.

When Bayard was four years old, the family moved to a farm about a mile

from the village. There they lived, until, years afterward, the successful
traveler and poet bought an estate near by and built a magnificent house

upon it, into which he received his father and mother and brothers and
sisters, with that open-hearted generosity and hospitality which was so
much a part of his nature.

He was the fourth child of his parents; but the three older children had died

in infancy, and he remained as the eldest of the family.

Chester County, Pennsylvania, has always been a rich farming region,